N.Y. Man Killed After Being Pushed Onto Subway Tracks

A New York City man was pushed to
his death in front of a subway train in the Sunnyside
neighborhood of Queens, police said, in the second such fatality
this month.

The victim was sent tumbling onto the tracks into the path
of a No. 7 train shortly after 8 p.m. yesterday at the subway
stop at Queens Boulevard and 40th Street, said Paul Browne, a
spokesman for the New York City Police Department. Police have
tentatively identified the victim as a 46-year-old man who lived
in Queens and worked in a printing business, which Browne
declined to identify. He had no family in New York, police said.

The man’s body remained under the train for at least two
hours after the incident while police investigated, said
Lieutenant John Grimpel, a police spokesman. Detectives are
searching for the suspect and have a video of a woman running
from the subway stop, according to the police.

The suspect is a heavy-set Hispanic woman in her 20s,
approximately 5 feet 5 inches tall with brown or blonde hair,
Browne said. She was wearing a blue, white and gray ski coat and
Nike shoes that were gray on top with red soles.

Female Suspect

Witnesses said the woman was walking back and forth on the
platform, talking to herself, police said. She took a seat alone
on a wooden bench near the north end of the platform, and when
the train pulled into the station, stood up and approached the
victim from behind and pushed him, Browne said.

“The victim appeared not to notice her, according to
witnesses,” Browne said in a statement. “He was struck by the
first of the 11-car train, with his body pinned under the front
of the second car as the train came to a stop.”

The suspect fled down two separate staircases to the
street.

The 40th Street-Lowery Street station is just six stops east
of midtown Manhattan. Its narrow eastbound platform, elevated
two stories above the street, is packed at rush-hour with
exiting commuters forced to slowly funnel down stairwells past
riders waiting to board trains.

“It’s the urban nightmare,” Browne said, adding that the
two incidents in one month didn’t indicate that there was a
“trend,” referring to the Dec. 3 death of a man pushed onto
the tracks in front of an oncoming train in Manhattan.

Manhattan Killing

In the Manhattan incident, at the Times Square station,
Naeem Davis, 30, was charged with second-degree murder in the
death of 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han, according to the Associated
Press. Davis said he was coaxed into shoving Han onto the tracks
by voices in his head he couldn’t control, the AP said, citing
the New York Post.

“It’s sometimes in the back of peoples’ minds because of
the incident preceding this one, but there’s no indication that
it is related in any way or inspired it,” Browne said of
yesterday’s death.

The NYPD announced earlier this week that there were 414
murders in New York City through Dec. 23, a 19 percent decrease
from last year and fewer than the previous low of 471 reached in
2009. Barring a sudden spike in violence in the last week of the
year, 2012 will mark the lowest murder total since comparable
records began in 1963, Browne said. There were 2,262 murders in
1990, according to data posted on the NYPD’s website.

Bloomberg Statement

Today, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a
statement that 2012 also saw the fewest number of shootings on
record, with 1,353 as compared with a previous low of 1,420 in
2009. Shootings have decreased by 8.5 percent so far this year
compared to 2011 and 14.5 percent since 2001, Bloomberg said.
The mayor is majority owner of Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg
News.

The No. 7 train extends from Times Square in Manhattan into
Queens, terminating in the neighborhood of Flushing, east of
LaGuardia airport. Police suspended service at the 40th Street
station through the night while the investigation proceeded,
reopening it to the public before the morning rush-hour. By 7:30
a.m., there was no visible indication of the incident.

Adam Lisberg, a spokesman for the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority, said today there’s not much the agency
can do beyond warning people to stay away from the tracks on
platforms. He said barriers between platforms and trains used in
some transit systems, such as those used on platforms serving
the AirTrain between the Jamaica area of Queens and John F.
Kennedy International Airport, aren’t suitable for the subway.

The subway system uses several different trains with doors
in different positions so there’s no uniform way to place the
gates, and the cost would be prohibitive, he said.

“If we lived in a world of completely available unlimited
dollars there may be a way to” prevent such incidents, said
Joseph Lhota, the MTA chairman. “I don’t think this is
something that can be solved by spending more money in the
subway system.”

Lhota said that he encourages“ all New Yorkers to stand
back from the edge of the platform.”